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Carnaval San Fracisco 2017

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

 
El Corazón de San Pancho/The Heart of San Francisco

On May 28th, 2017 at 9:30 a.m. the Grand Parade kicks–off at the corner of 24th and Bryant Streets. Watch a brilliant procession of contingents, most of which will feature beautifully adorned floats depicting rich multicultural themes and featuring performers who engage and entertain the crowds.

This 2017 marks the 39th annual Carnaval San Francisco parade and festival. On May 27th and 28th, the Mission District will transform into an enormous celebration pulsating with dancing, drumming, live music, brilliant costumes and delicious food. Traditions from Brazil, Mexico, Bolivia, Colombia, Trinidad & Tobago, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Guatemala, Chile, Haiti, and West Africa will be presented.

The annual event attracts more than 400,000 people who come to enjoy the revelry and soak up the pageant of color and culture.

Meet our Grand Marshal John Santos

Seven-time Grammy nominee, 2012 San Francisco Latino Heritage Arts Award winner, SFJAZZ Resident Artistic Director (2013 & 2014), and US Artist Fontanals Fellow, John Santos, is a major bandleader, composer, producer, percussionist, and educator in Afro-Latin music with a professional career spanning over four decades.

International sensation, smoldering vocalist & ace percussionist, Estaire Godinez, will be a judge at our Grand Parade on May 28th!

The Extraordinary Playscapes Exhibition

Design Museum San Francisco, Playworld, San Francisco Recreation & Parks, and the San Francisco Public Library are pleased to announce the opening of Extraordinary Playscapes, an exhibition featuring over 40 pioneering play spaces from around the world, at the Main Library’s Fisher Children’s Center on April 6. Curated by Design Museum Foundation, the exhibition explores the latest thinking in playground design while presenting how vital free play is to childhood development, thriving communities, and social equity.

From towering treetop playgrounds to hand-knit crochet installations, visitors will discover how architects and designers worldwide are engaging diverse communities to translate play objectives into state-of-the-art and meaningful play environments.

The Extraordinary Playscapes Exhibition will run through July 8, 2017. San Francisco Main Public Library, 100 Larkin St, San Francisco.

 
La Loca Del Maniqui – based on text by Xavier Araiza

Monologue that identifies the inner and deep parts of individual and unconscious humiliation through the fun of seeing it as a fiction and realizing through laughter that only you can change your life.

Have fun and be happy before the manipulative energy and detestable of one who likes to abuse physically or emotionally of another without caring about the meaning of what he does, simply enjoy feeling superior and destroying without any knowledge that hurting himself, with learned actions, exhausting, can lead to another being a the same humiliation.

The only solution to this is to enjoy it and leave the pit triumphant, without suffering, just laughing and laughing, and laughing until you can no longer with the pain and let it go.

On Thursday, May 18, 2017, 7 p.m., at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, Theater, cover charge $20. Obra en español. At 2868 Mission St, San Francisco.

San Francisco Public Library wins multiple national awards

by the El Reportero’s news services

San Francisco Public Library has recently been awarded four prestigious national awards – from the American Library Association, National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

  “I’m proud that we have received national recognition for so many diverse projects,” said Luis Herrera, San Francisco City Librarian. “These awards address San Francisco’s role in combatting AIDS, supporting the National Parks, recognizing our community history and being the tech capital of the nation.  Our staff is always looking for better and more innovative ways to serve the community and it’s nice for us and our partners to be rewarded.”

The awards are as follows:

• American Library Association’s John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Award for “Summer Stride: Read. Create. Explore.”

• National Endowment for the Humanities’ award for “The San Francisco Bay Area’s Response to the AIDS Epidemic: Digitizing, Reuniting, and Providing Universal Access to Historical AIDS’s Records”

• Institute of Museum and Library Services’ Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program award for “Community Webs: Empowering Public Librarians to Create Community History Web Archives”

• National Endowment for the Humanities’ award for the “Public Knowledge” project

 San Francisco Public Library and our partner the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) have received a $250,000 Public Humanities Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the Public Knowledge project.

Argentina Celebrates Princess of Asturias Award to Les Luthiers

The news hits the headlines and is a trending on Twitter: the Argentine people have received today with joy the Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities granted to Les Luthiers.

The country woke up with this pleasant news and quickly many rushed to celebrate on the social networks where they pay homage to a group that has been an indissoluble part of the culture of this southern nation and has accompanied more than five generations.

“We are very happy with this award. We have been nominated for many years,” Marcos Mundstock, one of its members, said in a telephone interview with TN. ‘It was a surprise, a huge joy. There were some other nominees such as Martin Scorsese, who ripped you out laughing and yelled at you.”

The award to the witty comedy group came just as they mark five decades of its debut.

The Argentine group joined the list with 28 other nominees such as Spanish artist, Jose María Pérez Peridis, and Mexican philosopher, Miguel Leon-Portilla.
Nicaraguan volcano lagoons proposed as world´s heritage.

The volcano lagoons in Nicaragua have been proposed as world heritage, given their unique and peculiar features which make these sites the host for various endemic species.

The nine lagoons located on the volcanoes’ craters in Nicaragua, they are considered world heritage, for their unique nature and the endemic species of fish that genetically vary in each of them.

For that reason the lagoons are described as the ‘aquatic Galapagos’, although unique species of plants and animals also live nearby.

The Laguna de Apoyo, which emerged as such some 23,000 years ago, was declared a wildlife reserve in 1991.

Make insurance honest again

by Kris S. Held, M.D.

Republicans campaigned on a pledge to repeal and replace Obamacare. The electorate responded to this promise, and Republicans now control the House, Senate, and White House. So, what’s the hold up?

The holdup is that politicians succumb to pressure from special interest groups (insurance corporations and hospital associations) that benefit billions upon billions of dollars in a convoluted system of billing, subsidizing, and taxing to the point of insanity. These third-party entities feed off a medical-industrial complex that consumes more than $3.2 trillion yearly. They want to keep their hands on this money. Individual patients and doctors, by comparison, have no power or money to influence politicians.

In a recent Wall Street Journal piece, Daniel Henninger opined that the Freedom Caucus led by Congressman Mark Meadows was responsible for fracturing the Republican Party and delaying the leadership’s repeal of Obamacare. But this session has not considered a “Repeal Obamacare” bill. There was only Paul Ryan’s American Healthcare Act (AHCA)—put together in conjunction with insurance executives and hospital association lobbyists, behind closed doors with physician Senator Rand Paul knocking to no avail, and thrust on the American people with no messaging, in a take-it-or-leave-it condescending fashion.

Ryancare, AKA Obamacare 2.0, would have led to another 15 to 20 percent increase in premiums, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while leaving intact the expansive Obamacare insurance regulations that make insurance so expensive and creating yet another new government subsidy.

The Freedom Caucus, the Tuesday Group of “moderates,” and others, can trade accusations, but playing the blame game helps nothing. The goal is to make medical care in America great, accessible, and affordable, particularly in catastrophic circumstances. This requires that we make insurance affordable again, and to do this we must make insurance honest again.

One of the biggest deceptions of of all times is that the actual cost of medical care is so unfathomably expensive that no one could afford it without insurance. This myth is perpetuated by the insurance and hospital industries, because it is part of a perverse, convoluted, deceptive business plan.
Understanding this scam is essential to calling it out and fixing it.

Politicians decry huge hospital bills, and accordingly they claim they must support federal subsidies, Medicaid expansion, and even single payer, government-run medicine, recounting anecdotes of medical catastrophes. For example, a member of the Tuesday Group told how he tragically lost a child and would have been bankrupted by a million-dollar hospital bill were it not for his health insurance, and based on this he was unable to support repeal and replace of ObamaCare.

In reality, no one ever pays those huge bills. They are fabricated and inflated to maximize profit for insurance companies and hospitals. The mechanism for doing this is called the Chargemaster. Care can be and is rendered a fraction of the cost, as the Surgery Center of Oklahoma demonstrates.

Insurance companies negotiate with the hospitals to pay a percentage of the bill or a flat fee for a specific operation. This is called an “allowable.” While the bill is huge, the allowable is drastically less. Further, the insurance company pays only a fraction of the allowable because, on top of the monthly premium, the patient pays a deductible and a percentage of the allowable, called cost-sharing. The insurance company also receives government subsidies.

By overbilling and then accepting a lower payment (the allowable) from the insurer, the hospital is able to report that it has sustained a loss from providing medical care, which it calls “uncompensated care.” Then the federal government writes a check called the Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payment. The more phantom uncompensated care a hospital reports, the more subsidy money it will get from the government. DSH payments escalated from $1.3 billion in 1990 to $17.7 billion in 1992. Further, because hospitals report these manufactured phantom losses, they are deemed nonprofit and pay no taxes.

This is the hospitals’ sinister “marketing plan.” It terrifies patients when they get their bill, which is extremely difficult to understand, as if by design, and rarely itemized.

My perfectly healthy 22-year-old daughter was in a near fatal accident last year. My amazing physician and surgical colleagues saved her life. Her hospital bill for just under one week was more than $100,000.00. The insurance company paid the hospital the allowable- $40,000.00, at which the hospital actually makes a profit while claiming $60,000 in uncompensated care and receiving DSH money from the government. The hospital, being “nonprofit,” pays no taxes on all this money. My daughter paid her $3,000.00 deductible on top of $1200.00 each month in premiums, for a total of $17,400.00 last year, which means the insurance company actually paid the hospital only $22,600.00 of the $100,000.00 bill. In her prior 22 years of life she never had a claim, so the insurance company is still way ahead.  Had we been uninsured, the hospital would have billed us the full $100,000.00, I would have tried to negotiate the bill down to the Medicare rate and may have saved more money than the allowable negotiated by my insurance company. An uninsured patient should never just pay the falsely inflated hospital Chargemaster bill.

This explains why there is no transparency. Insurers don’t want patients to know about the “allowable” they have negotiated with each hospital. They want people to see only the inflated Chargemaster bill.

Politicians cannot keep their promises to bring us affordable care until they expose this dishonest and corrupt collusion.

(Kris Story Held, M.D. is a board certified ophthalmologist and ophthalmic surgeon. On October 1, 2015 her practice became completely third party free. Kris is actively developing an “alternate universe” with a group of San Antonio physicians, where physicians can practice through a direct patient care model called BridgeTwoHealth.com).

10 reasons to drink lemon water every morning

by Amy Goodrich

If you are looking for an easy trick to improve your life and overall health, than look no further. Drinking lemon water first thing in the morning is a pretty simple routine to get into and will have tremendous effects on your overall health.

Since I started this simple and surprisingly healthy habit a few years ago, I definitely noticed the difference. Not only does the refreshing taste wake me up in the morning, it helps to kick start digestion and finalizes my body’s natural detoxification processes… And lemons are packed with vitamin C, B, calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, enzymes, antioxidants, and fibers.

According to the Ayurvedic philosophy, choices you make regarding your daily routine either build up resistance to diseases or tear it down.
So what are you waiting for to jump start your day with this incredible easy morning routine. Its benefits are endless and I listed the 10 most important ones for you in this article.

1. Improves Digestion

Lemon juice has a similar structure to your stomach’s juices and helps to loosen and flush out toxins from the digestive tract. Lemon juice can help ease indigestion, heartburn, and bloating. It also helps to move your bowels in the morning, hydrates your colon, stimulate bile production, and infuses water in your stool.

2. Boost Immune System.

Lemon juice is rich in vitamin C, which helps strengthen the immunes system and fights cold and flu. But not only vitamin C is important for a good working immune system, iron is another important nutrient, and lemons improve the ability to absorb more iron from the food you eat.
3. Hydrates Your Body

It is important to stay hydrated. Especially during the summer months. Plain water is best, but many people find this boring and are not drinking enough of it. That’s where lemon comes into play to make things more interesting. So feel free to not only start your day with lemon water, but drink as many glasses as you wish during the day to stay hydrated.

4. Boost Energy

Lemon water gives you an instant boost of energy and improves your mood right at the start of your day.

5. Promote Healthy And Rejuvenated Skin

Lemons are a rich sources of antioxidants that prevent free radical damage. These free radicals are responsible for pre-mature aging of your skin. Vitamin C helps to maintain your skin’s elasticity to prevent the formation of wrinkles and decrease blemishes.

6. Reduce Inflammation

Lemons have the ability to remove uric acid from your joints. Uric acid built-ups are one of the major causes of inflammation.

7. Weight Loss Aid

Although lemon water on its own is no weight loss miracle, it can definitely help you to achieve faster and long term results. Lemons assist in fighting hunger cravings, boost metabolism, and give you a stuffed feeling, making it less likely to snack in between meals.

8. Alkalize Your Body

Although lemons have a sour taste, they are one of the most alkalizing food sources on Earth. Too much acids can cause inflammation, obesity, and major diseases like cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

9. Cleansing Properties

Lemons help your entire body to flush out more toxins to prevent built-ups and damage to your cells, tissues, and organs. It stimulates your liver to produce more enzymes and work more efficiently. Lemon juice works as a diuretic to keep your urinary tract toxin-free and can also change the pH levels which discourage bacterial growth. This is very helpful for people who often suffer from UTI (urinary tract infection). And like mentioned before, lemons loosen and flush out waste from your digestive tract and cleanse your colon.

10.Antibacterial and Antiviral Properties

Lemons have antibacterial and antiviral properties. They help fight the flu, cold, and soothe a sore throat. Although people who drink their daily lemon water every day are less likely to get these in the first place.

Is the destruction of Chávez’s figure the end of Maduro?

Amid economic chaos, food shortages and widespread protest, some believe the government has ‘hit rock-bottom’ – yet key figures remain loyal to the president

by Virginia López

CARACAS – The demonstration began with a group of schoolboys, who gathered – still dressed in their school uniforms – in the palm-lined square outside the town hall of the prairie town of Villa del Rosario in western Venezuela.

Before long, some kind of flammable liquid was thrown at a life-sized statue of the late president Hugo Chávez and set alight. And then, to cheers from onlookers, the figurine itself – which appeared to be made of glass-fibre or plastic – was pulled down and dragged into the street.

In terms of historical significance, the incident is unlikely to rank alongside the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s 12-metre statue in Baghdad, shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

But the destruction of the statue last Friday did not go unnoticed in a country where many public buildings are still adorned with images of Chávez, four years after his death.

Over the weekend, cellphone pictures and footage of the incident went viral in Venezuela, where widespread discontent with President Nicolás Maduro, Chávez’s handpicked successor, has erupted into near-daily protests.

Since then, the gesture has been repeated elsewhere: in Ureña, a town in western Venezuela, a bust of Chávez disappeared from a public square, and in the late leader’s home state of Barinas, a mural with the leader’s face reproduced in the style of Warhol’s Marilyns was defaced.

Some argue that such incidents demonstrate that after years of economic chaos, food shortages and government repression, Venezuelans have finally reached the breaking point.

“This showed that the government is hitting rock-bottom,” said Marinelis Soto, an accountant who lives near Villa del Rosario. “This happened in a town that used to be pro-government – and now people are so angry that they are constantly blocking roads.”

But others warn that, as Maduro moves forward with plans to rewrite the country’s constitution despite six weeks of anti-government protests – talk of a tipping point still seems premature.

Hundreds of thousands have joined near-daily demonstrations, but many ordinary Venezuelans – and the country’s political and military elites – remain loyal to Chavismo, ideology following in the footsteps of Chávez. And according to Luís Vicente Leon, a leading pollster, the collapse of authoritarian regimes is more often caused by internal splits than outside pressure.

“Fractures [in the government] always exist, but we can’t talk about reaching critical mass,” he said.

“In these processes, what you see are internal fissures that are so deep that they lead to an implosion. They don’t come from the opposition, or from a crisis. They generally come from inside,” he said.

One sign of such internal divisions came in March when the country’s attorney general, Luisa Ortega, condemned an attempt by the government-stacked supreme court to strip the opposition-led congress of its power as “a rupture of the constitutional thread”.

The move was soon put on hold, but Ortega has since become more outspoken. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, she condemned the government’s mismanagement of the economy and expressed support for the protesters.

“We cannot demand that the citizens behave peacefully and legally in front of a state that is taking decisions that do not obey the law,” Ortega said.

In recent weeks, Maduro has come under criticism from a number of unexpected sources. The 20-year-old son of the country’s ombudsman, Tarek William Saab, read a letter to his own father on YouTube, in which he pleaded with him to “put an end to the injustices afflicting his country”. Yibram Saab published his message after he had joined a protest in which a 20-year-old student was killed.

“It could have been me,” Saab told his father.

Last week, the death of a 17-year-old viola player prompted the conductor Gustavo Dudamel – who had been criticised for not speaking out – to issue a statement criticizing the government and demanding Maduro to put an end to violence.

Maduro’s decision to call for a constituent assembly has also earned him criticism from high-ranking figures on the left of his party, who see the move as an affront to Chávez’s legacy. (Chávez oversaw the drafting of a new constitution in 1999, which he declared was “perfect”.)

“The Constituent assembly is a risky step and a great historical responsibility. It opens a space through which elements that destroy our revolution could enter,” Rafael Ramírez, Venezuelan ambassador to the UN and one of Chávez’s key allies, wrote in a local newspaper over the weekend.

Although pressure on Maduro may be mounting, it is still not coming from two key areas, Leon said. “The electoral authorities validated the constituent assembly, and perhaps most important, we haven’t seen the military express dissent,” he said.

For now, the war of attrition between government and opposition looks set to continue, and the death toll seems certain to rise.

Monica Pérez, who lives close to the square where the Chávez monument once stood, said that the toppling of the statue had galvanized the opposition in the town.
“It was the first time I saw this happen here,” she said. “We all feel the moment is now, and we must continue in the streets until the end.” (Reported by the Guardian).

Tensions rise as US announces military drills near embattled Venezuela

Three South American countries are preparing to hold a large military drill near Venezuela later this year. The involvement of the U.S. military in the drill has raised concerns about the U.S.’ true intentions in the area, as it has already worked to covertly destabilize Venezuela’s economy.

by MintPress News Desk
News analysis

CHILE — The involvement of the U.S. military in an upcoming multilateral military drill in South America has raised concerns over potential ulterior motives on the part of the U.S. The drill, dubbed “Operation: America United,” will involve the installation of a temporary military base on the triple border shared by the drill’s other participating nations: Peru, Brazil and Colombia.

According to Theofilo de Oliveira, the top general of the Brazilian Armed Forces, the U.S. military will carry out the drill along with the three Latin American nations this November over a period of ten days. The Brazilian military has asserted that the objective of the exercise is to “ develop greater knowledge, share experiences and develop mutual trust.” Brazilian government officials have strongly denied rumors that the exercise will lead to the establishment of a multinational military base in the Amazon.

The U.S. was invited to participate by Brazil’s unelected president Michel Temer, who has notably boosted Brazilian military spending by 36 percent while simultaneously freezing public spending for two decades through a controversial constitutional amendment.

A friendly relationship with Brazil’s military is key for the U.S.’ strategic interest in South America. As Hector Luis Saint Pierre – coordinator of international security, defense and strategy at the Brazilian Association of International Relations – told the BBC: “Brazil is a strategic partner for the doctrine of the military. If the United States has a good relationship with the Brazilian navy, it is easier to spread its message among the military in the region.”

Pierre pointed out that the drill is of particular interest to the U.S., as it presents an opportunity to focus on the political situation in Venezuela. According to Telesur, President Donald Trump has already met with the presidents of Peru and Colombia to discuss the U.S.’ interest in Venezuela.

As MintPress has previously reported, Venezuela has been the target of ongoing economic warfare as the U.S. continues to disrupt the leftist government first brought to power by the late Hugo Chávez. While Nicolás Maduro – Chávez’s successor – certainly bears some of the blame for Venezuela’s current situation, the U.S. has worked to covertly devastate the Venezuelan economy through a combination of sanctions and oil price manipulation.

With its cash reserves quickly dwindling as a result, Maduro’s embattled government will likely go bankrupt at some point in the next several months, as nearly 70 percent of its remaining reserves must be used to pay back interest on loans from foreign governments. When “Operation: America United” begins, the situation in Venezuela is highly likely to be much more dire and Maduro’s government on the verge of collapse.

In addition, the U.S. has funneled millions to Venezuelan opposition parties since the failed U.S.-led coup against Chávez in 2002, having spent an estimated $50 to $60 million since Chávez’s election on bolstering the country’s right wing. Now, that figure is set to grow substantially as the U.S. Senate is set to vote on a bill that would funnel millions more to the Venezuelan opposition, as well as unnamed non-government organizations.

The bill, titled the “Venezuela Humanitarian Assistance and Defense of Democratic Governance Act,” seeks to offer $10 million in “humanitarian assistance” to Venezuela and another $10 million for “democracy promotion.”

As the bill itself points out, the U.S. is extremely interested in the financial situation in Venezuela, particularly due to U.S. concerns that Russia may gain control of Venezuelan oil infrastructure if the Maduro government ends up declaring bankruptcy.

Within the text of the bill, concerns are raised regarding Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA and its transactions with Rosneft, a Russian state-owned oil company. As TeleSur noted: “fearful that PDVSA could default on its $4 – and $5-billion dollar loans from Rosneft, regardless of Venezuela’s steadfast debt repayments, the bill warned that Rosneft could come into control of PDVSA’s U.S. subsidiary, CITGO Petroleum Corporation, which ‘controls critical energy infrastructure in 19 States in the United States.’” Seeing as Russia has already seized Venezuelan oil for unpaid bills despite their political alliance, this fear is not unfounded.

While the U.S. has held drills in South America in the past with little fanfare, the timing and location of the new drill, as well as the nations involved in it, have raised speculation about the U.S.’ current objectives in South America.

Given the U.S. fear of Venezuelan oil becoming the property of the Russian government, as well as the U.S.’ documented history of overthrowing and undermining leftist governments in Venezuela, “Operation: American United” may be less of a drill and more of what its name implies – a way to bring Venezuela, along with other South American nations, back into the fold of U.S. influence.

Plan Bay Area 2040 is UN’s Agenda 21, says expert

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Dear readers:

Perhaps many of you still remember past articles in this editorial section that dealt with an issue named Agenda 21, which is the blueprint of a big plan directed by the United Nations for local government control of property, energy, water, transportation, etc. The extension of the Agenda is being presented by the Bay Area Government Association and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, as Plan Bay Area 2040.

We’ve brought an expert here to explain just what is going on.

Rosa Koire refers to Plan Bay Area 2040 as ‘the green mask’ because it sounds good but masks a global plan of the huge mega-corporations. In her words:

“PLAN BAY AREA is being used to regionalize the SF Bay Area and erase the city, county, and ultimately, State boundaries. Your transportation tax dollars will be used to build apartments and condos in designated areas of your city—and nowhere else. Your money will be directed to favored developers building stack and pack housing. You are losing the ability to direct your elected officials through this plan to destroy local representation. This is happening across the US.
This week you’ll be seeing notices inviting you to give your opinion on this new plan for the Bay Area. Don’t be fooled. Not a word you say will change this plan. You are being used by the planners so that they can say that they consulted the public. Read Rosa’s book and website to find out what you can do to fight UN Agenda 21.

Plan Bay Area 2040, is United Nation’s Agenda 21, says expert

by Rosa Koire

We are suing to stop Plan Bay Area, the nine county land use and transportation plan which is a violation of your constitutional rights and a shocking overreach of the experiment in regional governance.

Our nation is a constitutional republic with a framework of direct election that rises from local government through county, state, and up to the federal level.
This framework ensures that the peoples’ rights are protected and that our voices are heard. Plan Bay Area is designed to empower a layer of regional government between state and county, and ultimately between state and federal which renders our voices irrelevant. These regional boards are not elected by the people; the board members are selected out of elected officials who support regional goals.

Regional boards like the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) are holding the purse strings for state and federal transportation and grant dollars. MTC and ABAG have fabricated Plan Bay Area though they claim that it was crafted in response to the needs and desires of Bay Area residents. Most people have never heard of Plan Bay Area. Of the seven million residents of the Bay Area approximately three tenths of one percent have participated in the so-called planning sessions. These planning sessions were tailored to elicit responses that favor high density urban development (Smart Growth), the preferred scenario of Plan Bay Area. Those voicing a dissenting opinion were virtually ignored, labeled as NIMBYs, or as political fringe. As a liberal Democrat, registered since 1974, I recognize this kind of smear as a way of chilling our civil rights by attempting to intimidate those who reject Plan Bay Area’s blatant violation of property rights.

PLAN BAY AREA violates the 5th Amendment of the US Constitution by taking property rights without just compensation. By the creation of Priority Development Areas this Plan restricts 80% of residential development and 66% of commercial development to just a few small areas of your city–until the year 2040. If your property is outside of the PDA (96% of property is outside) you will likely not be able to build or expand your building–and you won’t be paid for this loss.
PLAN BAY AREA violates the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution–the Equal Protection Clause. Owners of properties in the Priority Development Areas will receive development permits at a rate of approximately 80 times more than owners of property outside of the Priority Development Areas.

PLAN BAY AREA violates voter-approved Urban Growth Boundary ordinances. Because the Priority Development Areas are within the UGBs but are much smaller restricted areas they are in violation of ordinances that clearly state that development must be encouraged out to the limits of city services: Urban Growth Boundaries. These ordinances are found throughout the Bay Area and cannot be changed without voter approval.

PLAN BAY AREA permanently strips all development rights from rural properties in the nine county Bay Area. Plan Bay Area is effectively taking conservation easements on all rural lands without paying for them.

PLAN BAY AREA restricts development rights of property within the Priority Development Areas, too. Construction will be limited to mixed-use high density Smart Growth development. Existing buildings are likely to be out of compliance with your city’s General Plan (legal non-conforming) and permits to make additions or changes will likely not be granted.

This Plan is dependent on tax subsidies and handouts and will devastate the Bay Area for more than a generation. Property rights are a foundation of our freedom and are non-partisan. You may not own property but don’t let that stop you from recognizing that you are losing your rights. The message you’ll get from MTC is that there will be more affordable housing and lots of happy people riding bikes. This is the smiling mask covering the ugly truth. Similar plans can be found throughout the United States and the world with names like Envision Utah, Imagine Calgary, Granite State Future, PlaNY, One Valley One Vision, Horizon 2025 (Ontario, Canada), and Hanoi (Viet Nam) Regional Center 2030 Plan. All of these plans are the same plan with the same goal: move people out of the rural and suburban areas into the city centers where they can be more easily managed, controlled, and surveilled.

Ernst Huber, official Nazi Party spokesman, 1933:

‘All property is common property. The owner is bound by the people and the Reich to the responsible management of his goods. His legal position is only justified when he satisfies this responsibility to the community.‘

Nazi Land Philosophy:

The issue of land ownership is secondary; what counts is the issue of control. Private citizens, therefore, may continue to hold titles to property–so long as the state reserves to itself the unqualified right to regulate the use of their property.
——Leonard Peikoff, The Ominous Parallels, 1982
Join us now in stopping Plan Bay Area. Refuse to be manipulated at MTC’s ‘visioning meetings.’

Rosa Koire
Executive Director

Rosa Koire, author of BEHIND THE GREEN MASK: U.N. Agenda 21 and executive director of the Post Sustainability Institute is a forensic commercial real estate appraiser specializing in eminent domain valuation. A retired District Branch Chief for the California Department of Transportation, her thirty year career in litigation support and land valuation culminated in researching and exposing the planning revolution impacting land use: UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development.

ACLU issues Texas “Travel Advisory”

Traveling to Texas may result in violation of constitutional rights, ACLU warns

by the ACLU

WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union issued a “travel alert” today informing anyone planning to travel to Texas in the near future to anticipate the possible violation of their constitutional rights when stopped by law enforcement.

The alert comes amid the passing of a Texas law known as SB4. The law gives a green light to police officers in the state to investigate a person’s immigration status during a routine traffic stop, leading to widespread racial profiling, baseless scrutiny, and illegal arrests of citizens and non-citizens alike presumed to be “foreign” based on how they look or sound.  The travel alert applies to all travelers to Texas, including U.S. travelers from other states and U.S. citizens.  In addition, this alert applies to all encounters with federal, state, county law enforcement including local police and sheriffs.

SB4 requires Texas law enforcement to comply with the federal government’s constitutionally flawed use of detainer requests, which ask local law enforcement to hold people for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), even when they lack the legal authority to do so.

Local ACLU affiliates also issued a Texas travel alert. These include:

California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii. Louisiana, Maine, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin, Wyoming.

SB4 will go into effect on Sept. 1, 2017.

If you believe your rights have been violated because of SB4, please contact the ACLU of Texas at 1-888-507-2970.

ACLU “Know Your Rights” materials are available in a variety of languages here:

www.aclu.org/know-your-rights 

Mexico: activist for disappeared people murdered

Mexico, May 11 – Miriam Elizabeth Rodriguez, an activist for the cause of thousands of disappeared people in Mexico, was murdered by an armed group in Tamaulipas (north) as reported when this edition was on closing.

The victim was representing the families searching for their disappeared relatives in San Fernando. Her death occurred Wednesday, when the Mothers’ Day was being celebrated in Mexico, and demonstrations with mothers and relatives of the more than 26,000 disappeared people took place in different cities.

Members of a group of community self-defense and organized crime hitmen clashed with shots in the region of Tierra Caliente, Mexican state of Guerrero, with balance of eight dead people, they reported.

The clashes involved members of the movement for peace, self-defense, and a group of the organized crime still unidentified.

In the state of Guerrero, there are cartels in operation, such as the Los Rojos (Reds) and the Guerreros Unidos (United Warriors), linked to drug trafficking and other illegal activities.

Though the government and international organizations have their statistics, several civil organizations stated there are more than 30,000 people in that condition.

During one of the demonstrations in this capital, the impunity in this aspect and the inefectiveness of the government to fight it, were denounced.

‘Mexico is a large clandestine and common grave’, said one of the demonstration’s organizers.

Students to build more than 100 renewable energy kits in PG&E’s Solar Suitcase Program

by PGE Public Announcement

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.—Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced today a $400,000 grant that will put more than 100 portable solar kits into the hands of 2,000 students through central and northern California. Students will build portable solar units, participate in local sustainability projects and advance energy equity globally by providing clean, reliable power to energy-scarce regions of the world.

“PG&E Solar Suitcase students have the opportunity to explore and learn about key renewable energy sources in a way that is both educational and meaningful. Not only do students learn interactively about STEM concepts, but they also make significant impacts locally and globally by providing entire communities with easy access to clean energy,” said Ananda Baron, senior director of Community Relations.

The kits, which are supplied by the nonprofit, We Share Solar, are small, portable photovoltaic lighting systems, powerful enough to illuminate a classroom. Teachers will be trained to teach their students about designing solar electric systems and give them the hands-on experience of assembling the Solar Suitcase kits.

Participating student groups will be invited to submit videos of their own local sustainability projects to a program-wide video contest. Winning schools and organizations will have the opportunity to send two student representatives, accompanied by a teacher, to deliver solar suitcases to schools and community-based organizations in rural Ecuador with the nonprofit WE Charity. Additional suitcases will be sent to Kenya and other energy-scarce regions around the world.

“The We Share Solar team has been inspired by PG&E’s partnership with our organization to provide innovative, engaging STEM learning to students and teachers. The global service component of the program continues to be a source of inspiration for the next generation to realize that they can make a tangible difference by applying engineering to solve a real-world problem,” said Hal Aronson, co-founder and director of education and technology for We Share Solar.

Since its inception in 2015, the PG&E Solar Suitcase program has:

• Trained and supported 37 teachers across Northern and Central California
• Educated 2,015 Californian students on sustainable energy
• Delivered clean, renewable energy to 15,000 Kenyan students.

How to apply: The deadline to apply for your school or organization is May 24, 2017. Winners will be notified by June 7. For more information and to apply, visit pge.com/solarsuitcase.

The Mexican Museum presents: Tramas Urbanas, the work of Mexican artist Paloma Torres

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

Tramas Urbanas (Urban Patterns), an exhibition featuring the textural work of acclaimed Mexican visual artist Paloma Torres.

Tramas Urbanas is a visually provocative collection of abstract sculptures and handmade textiles based on a series of aerial photographs she took over Mexico City. Her images – from aerial portraits of irregular settlements that surround Mexico City to a sort of urban archaeology that discovers small objects that allow the megalopolis to function – became the inspiration for Tramas Urbanas, and captured a new reality of today’s sprawling urban environments.

For the very elaborate techniques used for creating her felt textiles, Torres worked with purely natural elements, including fibers and wool from different regions of the world, as well as dyes based on those used in Mexico’s pre-Hispanic cultures.

The event is a collaborative project between The Mexican Museum and the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores de México (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico), with the support of the Consulate General of Mexico in San Francisco.

The Extraordinary Playscapes Exhibition

Design Museum San Francisco, Playworld, San Francisco Recreation & Parks, and the San Francisco Public Library are pleased to announce the opening of Extraordinary Playscapes, an exhibition featuring over 40 pioneering play spaces from around the world, at the Main Library’s Fisher Children’s Center on April 6. Curated by Design Museum Foundation, the exhibition explores the latest thinking in playground design while presenting how vital free play is to childhood development, thriving communities, and social equity.

From towering treetop playgrounds to hand-knit crochet installations, visitors will discover how architects and designers worldwide are engaging diverse communities to translate play objectives into state-of-the-art and meaningful play environments.

The Extraordinary Playscapes Exhibition will run through July 8, 2017. San Francisco Main Public Library, 100 Larkin St, San Francisco.

 La Loca Del Maniqui – based on text by Xavier Araiza

Monologue that identifies the inner and deep parts of individual and unconscious humiliation through the fun of seeing it as a fiction and realizing through laughter that only you can change your life.

Have fun and be happy before the manipulative energy and detestable of one who likes to abuse physically or emotionally of another without caring about the meaning of what he does, simply enjoy feeling superior and destroying without any knowledge that hurting himself, with learned actions, exhausting, can lead to another being a the same humiliation.

The only solution to this is to enjoy it and leave the pit triumphant, without suffering, just laughing and laughing, and laughing until you can no longer with the pain and let it go.

On Thursday, May 18, 2017, 7 p.m., at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, Theater, cover charge $20. Obra en español. At 2868 Mission St, San Francisco.

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